


Outcasts

by Mourningstar (skinsuit)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Prison, Superhero juvie, Superhero universe, YA Novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1784257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skinsuit/pseuds/Mourningstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world were superpowers exist.  The kids and teens who commit crimes with superpowers are sent to Dwuane Dawkins junior detention center. No matter how small or large  the crime. This is the story of four of these teens. And their lives after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outcasts

The first time they met was in the gray anteroom, of Duane Dawkins junior detention center. All of them had exchanged their clothes for the dark blue jumpsuit, the uniform of the detention center. They sat on hard chairs, in neat rows. Guards lounged in their green uniforms, each guard carried a cattle prod.

The Warden, Mr. Smith addressed them: “You are here because you have been born with special powers, powers which you have chosen to abuse. Since you are not of age, you will not be sent to the Northern Solitude, you have been sent here and given a chance to reform. For some of you, this is not a new speech, some it is. Remember here you will encouraged to rehabilitate, if you don’t then you are a fool. This may be your last and only chance.” 

Mr. Smith was box shaped balding white man, his skin was wrinkled and pallid, but he had a very distinctive birth mark on his left cheek in the shape of an eagle, well not exactly an eagle but the more imaginative of his charges could just about see it in the wine-colored splotch on his cheek. He used to wear a mask over it, he used have another identity, when he was young he had clad himself in silver and been called The Chevalier of Right.  
He was one of three ex-heroes on staff.  
Listening to his speech in the gray anteroom among the crowd of malcontents and hooligans where Adrianna Vasquez, Chance Haze, Josephine Duvaine and Gareth Pendleton. 

 

Adrianna  
She has long straight brown hair and big soft brown eyes. She doesn’t belong here, or so she thinks. But she was told by the lawyer that any crime committed with superpowers is considered serious enough to warrant arrest. She can still her mother’s tears on her cheek. Hear her soft voice and smell her perfume. She remembers her mother holding her, Adrianna was still and straight as a rod. Mom clasping her to her warm, soft chest. Adrianna felt an overwhelming wave of embarrassment then. She regrets it now. The lawyer told her they’d try to shorten her sentence.   
Why did it happen? They had moved to a new town. A new school, high school and Adrianna was trying to make friends. Some of the girls in her class had invited to go hang out in the local mall. They were talking around her and through her. She felt all alone and invisible. Then she remembered and she almost laughed out loud at the feeling of it.

“I can melt glass with my hands.” She said.

 ”What?” said one of the girls, that smelled strongly of cheap perfume.

“Yeah,” Adrianna nodded

“No way!” commented a fat tough girl with no eyebrows.

“Yeah I can.” said Adrianna

“Okay prove it.” said the other girl.

“How?” said Adrianna

“See that shop over there melt the glass and take the clothes off the mannequin.” said the tough girl.

“Fine I will.” Adrianna said sounding as calm as ice.

Biting her bottom lip she walked over to the large, bright store window. At first she hesitated, but she didn’t want to be a liar, she wanted to be brave and cool She placed her hands on the glass and concentrated, really thought hard. The glass under her palms began to warm and change from solid to liquid, she could feel the heat and viscous texture. The window fell like a curtain of water. She stepped through. There were shouts all around here and the beep of an alarm. For superpowers were not a common thing, only one in 500,000 people where born with them and fewer still earned them. She wanted to turn and run, but she had to prove she was tough, cool and in control. Adrianna had just touched the collar of the shirt on the mannequin when the security guards descended on her like a swarm of black beetles. They roughly pulled her back yanking her arms and cuffing her with zip ties. Her new ‘friends’ were no where to be found.

She was charged with vandalism and attempted theft. It would have been just a fine and few days community service if she smashed the glass with a baseball bat, if she was just a normal girl. But she was not. So now she sat with the others feeling alone, and scared. How would she deal with the older, tougher inmates? 

She bites down on her lower lip as she forces her nervous feeling down deep inside her.

Gareth  
He sat staring at his hands. Like the rest of him they were stubby and freckled. He hardly heard the lecture the warden gave. Gareth had short curly brown hair, a pug nose and heavy eyebrows. He knew he was ugly and unloved, that was the way it always been. He had been unloved for so long that when someone tried to love him, he turned away from them. It had been that way with his last set of foster parents. They wanted to hug him but he ran from them. They wanted him to call them ‘Mom and ‘Dad’ he called them Erika and Tom. Like the rest they would reject him in the end, he was sure of that. His powers, were his gift and curse. The ability to make little earthquakes, to shatter anything. Or nearly anything. He was sure he would meet up with something his vibrating hands couldn’t break, but so far he hadn’t. He moodily looked at the other inmates, his blue eyes were dull and sullen: he labeled them all stupid, arrogant, shallow bullies. He wouldn’t be tamed, wouldn’t be contained, it was a matter time. He grinned down at his stubby unhandsome fingers. 

 

Josephine 

She was small for her age, small in every proportion. She had glasses but they took those, leaving her squinting, and her black hair was cut in a bob. As soon as she was put on the plane she’d been analyzing her surroundings for weaknesses. She had found 23 so far. Escape should be possible for someone with her intelligence with the resources she estimated would be on hand. Josephine was not afraid, why should she be, she had the Duvaine fortune and her genius to protect her. The other inmates were exploitable, so were the teachers, the warden and guards. She was good at manipulation, this would be a cinch. 

 

Chance  
Through out the entire lecture Chance had worn a smirk. It was a habit he had. He was a tall, wiry, handsome boy with green eyes and short blond hair. He smirked at everything, figuring that was the best way to go. His mother had told him when he was small that he should only use his powers for good. The ability to produce fire from his hands. Setting fire to a bully seemed like a good idea at the time, he never meant to hurt the other kid just scare them. Well that didn’t exactly happen the way he intended. So now he was here, no more Mom and Dad, no more lacrosse practice or home cooked meals. He’d done such a good job keeping his powers hidden until that day. He was sick of the bully slamming smaller kids into lockers, gaining correct answers through threats and intimidation. It made the normally placid Chance so mad. So he kept smirking and watched the lecture without fear.

 

Entrance.  
 ”FR ESH MEAT! FRESH MEAT!” Rang the call  
through the hallway as the new inmates paraded down to the dormitories. The old hands commented, called and jeered. One runty girl sent sparks flying from her finger tips, whether warning or greeting it was unsure. A hairy boy howled like a wolf.

Calling the long rooms filled with bunk beds and kids ranging from ages nine to 18. 

Chance

At the entrance of the boy’s dorm Gareth is stopped by two guards. Chance watches as the guards talk to the ugly boy who nods and looks down at his feet.   
The guards then pull out handcuffs and manacles. Odd handcuffs they remind Chance of metal mittens. The ugly boy, begins to panic and struggle the guards quick with their cattle prods. There is an uproar in the boy’s dorm as the inmates watch this spectacle. The ugly boy, Gareth is quickly knocked unconscious they put the metal mittens over his hands and manacle his feet. They drag him off.

“What happened?” asked Chance to the nearest inmate.

“You must be new,” said the boy, a dark skinned young kid with oddly old gray eyes. “He’s going to solitary cell. To dangerous for general population.”

“What about those things they put on his hands?”

“Oh the oven mitts? They are to make sure he can’t use his powers.” Said the kid.

“What’s your name?” asked Chance. ”I’m Chance.”

“I’m Trev,” said the boy. “When I was working for my Dad, I was the Sparrow. What’s your villain name?”

“I don’t have one,” said Chance.

The boy laughed and laughed. “First time offender then?” 

 

“Yeah,” said Chance and smiled disarmingly.

He grinned his teeth shinning white as ivory. “You got a lot to learn.”

 

Gareth

He woke up, tingling and with a headache. Gareth found himself laying on a cot in a padded cell, dark and cold. His fingers, they one thing in his life he had control over. They were immobile. He tried to move them, to shake this fucking place to the ground, shatter it and break it. But his fingers couldn’t move. The metal gloves wrapped around his palms, the back of his hand to the first knuckle. He was helpless, overwhelmed, drowning in fear and anxiety. Gareth scream and screamed, shaking his head, rocking his body. No one came, no one showed up. He was utterly alone. Rocking in the darkness. His scream became a whimper, then faded.

“They crippled me.” he said. “They crippled me. They crippled me. They crippled me. They crippled me. They crippled me. They crippled me. They crippled me. They crippled me.”   
It was a dull cracked whisper of a raw throat. 

“Why?” He asked the blank air.

He wanted a hug, odd thing to want, since normally he hated to be touched. He wished that someone in his life was worthy, was decent.   
“There is no one,” He said. “There never has been anyone. Just me. Just me. All false.”

On the last day in his crowded foster house with Erika and Tom Meville. Erika had said to him over his cereal: “It’s not fair, Gareth, Tom and I are getting a lawyer. Those children were bullying you. Given your history and your diagnosis---”

At that point Tom looked up from his paper and cleared his throat. Erika stopped speaking, and went back top tending to the four other children around the table.

Diagnosis? Gareth thought in his cell. When he’d first gone to the Mevilles’ they’d taken him to a woman with gray hair and glasses that asked him a lot of questions, and showed him pictures on a flip book and had him do puzzles. He liked answering the questions. He relished the routine of his weekly sessions. But he’d never admit that. Was he being diagnosed? But as what? He didn’t know and apparently it wasn’t official. 

Gently a presence began to drift into his mind. A warm comforting, someone. It was like slipping into a warm bathtub or having a soft blanket wrapped around him. He felt no fear, no anger as it comforted him. Whoever or whatever this was it understood his pain and wanted to make it go away. Slowly, he untensed and slipped into a deep, relaxing sleep. 

 

Dr. Ianthe Rose: the soother.

She was the most powerful empath on the planet and one the most power psychics. She had lost much: lovers, the vivid red of her hair, and her kingdom. She would not lose the battle with this awful, prig of a man, Warden Smith.  
stood in his office, the walls were covered with old pictures of Warden Smith as the Chevalier of right, plaques and awards. The Warden stood behind his plain wooden desk.

“What you did to Gareth Pendleton was---” She began her violet eyes flashing, her normally placid features infused with rage.

“--Nessacrary for the safety of the other inmates and staff.” Warden Smith said calmly from the other side of his desk. “He’s dangerous and his record shows he’s unstable.  
 ”He’s just fourteen! He’s been through five foster homes! He’s scared and alone.” She said. “He doesn’t trust anyone, this isn’t going to help rehabilitate him. It’ll make it worse.”

“Then you’re job as counselor here will be make things easier for him, won’t it?” Mr. Smith said. “Look, I appreciate you taking this job. I know how many super hero teams wanted you. I know you used to rule a kingdom. But you can’t lord it over me here, I run this facility.” Said Mr. Smith

“Gerald,” Ianthe sighed using the Warden’s name for the first time. She softened her voice. “I know you feel, to old to be the Silver Chevalier any more. But you can’t take it out on these children.”  
turned away. “I’m not to old,” he growled. “The guardians of righteousness decided I was to old and they took it away. But this isn’t me, Dr. Rose! It’s about the inmates. This is about a potentially very dangerous boy, harming others. I had to prevent that”

“You know the Mevilles are going to appealing his case. They claim he was trying to defend himself. When they find out what you did, it’ll only add weight to their case.” Ianthe said.

“Hmmmm,” Mr. Smith growled. “You made sure he calmed down right?”

“Yes, it was the right thing to do.” She said.

“You invaded his mind without his permission then?” Mr. Smith turned and smiled.  
 ”I-I...yes,” She sighed. “He was sufffering so much, I had to help.”  ”Then you are as culpable as I am.” said Mr. Smith. “You don’t want to lose this job do you? Without you the poor children... well...”

 ”No,” She said.

“Then you won’t say anything to the Mevilles’ or their lawyer?” He said.

“I suppose not.” She said.

 

Adrianna

Her bunk was in the far back of the long dormitory hall. She could feel the eyes of the other inmates on her, watching her and judging her. She could hear mutters and laughter. She stood taller and ignored it. The walls of the hall were white painted cinder block and the floor was concrete. The sheets on the bed were white, the scratchy blankets were a pea soup green. The bunk she was assigned was second from the last. A zaftig strawberry blonde girl with a pixie bob was lounging in the top bunk. So Adrianna sat on the bottom one. The last bed was an odd, it was only one level and huge, made of two other beds strapped together.   
She wondered about that for a minute, then it’s occupant, sat on it. She was a heavily muscled black girl, who looked like miniature mountain with her hair in short zigzag braids. The girl saw her staring and surprisingly smiled warmly. 

“Hi, you new honey?” her voice was a soft spoken wisp. “I’m Tanisha Price. But most of the people here call me Bo’hema, the hero Behemoth was my Daddy.”

Adrianna introduced herself and added. “I’m sorry I was staring.”

“It’s alright,” Tanisha said. “Everyone does. I’m a big girl.”  
She giggled covering her mouth with a huge ham like hand. 

The girl above her jumped off the top the bunk to the floor. she turned to Adrianna on her heels. She had a round pretty, girlish face but her large blue eyes had a hardened look in them.   
“I’m Cheryl Chandler.” She indifferently held out a hand. “You better not snore.”

“Ummm I don’t think I do.” Adrianna said. 

“She--” pointing to Tanisha. ”Snores sounds like a freight train.”

“So do you,” Tanisha said with a giggle.

“I guess we’re even then,” said Cheryl and her look softened.

“So what are you guys here for?” asked Adrianna.

“Most are here for crimes with super powers. But I’m here to lose a few pounds,” Cheryl said with a smirk. “I was told this was a fitness spa.”

Adrianna laughed and so did Tanisha.

“No really, they put me away for just trying to jack some shirt.” Adrianna said.

“Shit, that’s almost as hardcore as ripping a tag off a mattress,” said Cheryl. ”Me, I was at a party and some skinny bitch, from my school, who’d been talking smack about me was there. She was looking at me and whispering to her friends. I over heard her calling me a fat slut and it was on.”

 

She held up her hands a white light seeped from her fingertips it formed into a ball of pure shinning light. Adrianna reached out to touch the hovering ball.  
 ”I wouldn’t do that, honey,” said Tanisha. “They’re like razor blades. They’ll cut you bad.”

Adrianna withdrew her hand. Cheryl shook her head: “I wouldn’t let you let you touch them anyhow.”

She blinked and the ball of light disappeared. 

“What about you?” Adrianna said to Tanisha.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tanisha said her voice growing even softer, and looking down at her feet.

 

 ”Aww, come on,” said Cheryl. “What you did was justified.”

“My older sister was seeing this guy,” Tanisha started. “I was this one night, there taking care of her kids. I hear them fighting, in her room. It’s not my business, I try to ignore it. But the baby is crying and I know the fighting is making the baby cry. So I go up their room. And he’s got my sister by the neck and he’s choking her. I got so mad, I pulled him off of her. And I...”

She stopped looked down at her hands. 

 

“He was beating her, you had every right.” Cheryl said. “If I had a sister and some asshole was choking her. I’d do the same.”

“I just was so mad, and I kept punching him. My sister was screaming at me to stop but I didn’t. He was d-dead and I-I didn’t stop.” said Tanisha there was a tremble in her voice and tears in her eyes. “The police finally stopped me. I don’t know what came over me.”

“So you killed him?” said Adrianna.

“My lawyer said, I was justified, but the judge didn’t buy it. One of those tough on crime types.” said Tanisha.

“I had a judge like that,” said Adrianna. “At my sentencing she told me that any crime with super powers is a major crime and the start of super villainy.”

“So what can you do, exactly?” asked Cheryl.

“I melt glass with my hands, if I really concentrate.” said Adrianna. “It isn’t much. I found out when I was two leaning on a fish tank.”

“It could be enough,” said Cheryl. “For somethings.”

 ”Not really enough to make me hero or a villain.” said Adrianna with a shrug.

They sat around for moment or two, Tanisha broke the silence: ”You know, Adrianna you have the nicest hair. Most girls have to cut it off because shady bitches use against you in a fight. Wish I could braid it.”

She looked to Cheryl and back to Tanisha.

“Sure.” She said, she thought maybe she could trust Tanisha.

As the the girl’s huge hands wove through her hair she knew she could.

 

Josephine

She huddled on her bunk. Her nearsighted eyes and the lights put halos around distant people and blurred edges. One girl with strange golden sheen on her skin fascinated her. My parents are morons. She thought. As if this will stop me, as if getting some judge to pull some strings and put me in here will stop me.   
The therapy hadn’t stopped her, neither had special camps. It was inevitable, she would best her parents and get the family fortune. She hadn’t realized that the golden skinned girl was now scowling at her, she was just staring blankly ahead. That was when the golden skinned girls’ arm shot out, growing extraordinarily long and twisty, it grabbed Josephine by the lapel and yanked her right to the girl’s face.

“I don’t like the way you’re looking at me, skinny.” Said the girl, her stinking breath made Josephine wrinkle her nose.  
 ”You can’t do this,” Josephine protested. “I’ll get the guards!”  ”You try that.” said the girl. “See what happens to you next time we’re alone.”

“My parents have lawyers!” Josephine said angrily. “You try anything, I’ll sue you!”

“Sue this!” The girl drew back her other fist and hit Josephine in the stomach. 

“Show her Quin!” shouted someone.

Then the Quin’s friends joined in shouting and kicking Josephine to the floor.

The guards did come quickly and break it up. Josephine got off the floor, her nose was bloody, bruises formed around eyes, she ached. 

“What happened?” asked one the guards.

At first no one spoke. Then Josephine tilted her head back and sniffed back the blood. 

“This scum,” said Josephine. “Beat me up for no reason. I order you do something!”

The guard looked at her for a long time and then smiled revealing missing teeth. “Girlie, I’m not here to do you want. If you want to survive keep yourself to yourself.”  
 ”What?! Do you know who I am?” Josephine was angry now, her hands went to her hips. “You know what I can do you?”

the guard smacked her across the face.  
 ”In here it doesn’t matter who you were, out there, girlie,” said the guard, his name tag read Cutler.

There were snickers in the background. Josephine’s lip curled. “Fine.” She sneered and walked back to her bunk.

There was a black girl sitting on the bunk to the left, her head was shaved but the most extorindary thing was her face. Half of it seemed to have melted, Josephine wondered about that. The girl’s eyes turned towards her.  
Josephine quickly looked away. She would get them for this, Cutler, Quin and her cronies, all of them. She was to smart to be here and to rich be treated like that. The gears of her mind began to turn. 

 

Breakfast

The following day was Monday, the inmates of Duane Dawkins’ shuffled into the huge echoing cafeteria for breakfast. The cafeteria had long barred windows, the view outside was depressing, the green-brown ground were flat, the sky overhead gray, beyond the grass there is a wall a darker gray then the sky topped with razor wire, beyond that the mesh of the giant faraday cage that enclosed the whole facility. In the far distance outside the detention center, there is the a mountain range, it looks blue.

“What state are we in?” asked Adrianna to her two new friends. “I fell asleep on flight.”

“A boring one,” said Cheryl.

 ”Wyoming,” said Tanisha. “It’s Duane Dawkin’s home state.”

“You trying to get out on good behavior?” asked Cheryl.

“You know it,” said Tanisha with a laugh.   
three of them joined the snaking line for the first breakfast shift.

“Oh sweet!” Tanisha said easily seeing the food in the warming trays ”We got waffles and sausages today!”

“I don’t like those sausages...” Cheryl said. “They are weird, grade F mystery meat.”

Chance had gotten in back the three girls. He admired the fall of Adrianna’s brown hair, marveled at Tanisha’s size but mostly his eyes were Cheryl’s behind that looked so good in her jumpsuit. Could you date another inmate here, he wondered? Probably not. He heard a clanking and saw Gareth enter head lowered, in manacles and the ‘oven mitts’ over his hands, two guards bearing cattle prods in either side. Chance felt a wave of pity for him. He wanted to say something not much like ‘hey’ or ‘hi’. However, when Gareth passed by flanked by guards, the fear made all the words dry up in his throat and he just stared open mouthed.

Gareth didn’t want to be hurt again, the empty pain in his stomach had alerted to hunger and this morning he was informed that he could join the others for meals, PE, school and group therapy. He said nothing, he felt small bubbles of anger inside of him, but if he kept quiet and did as he was told, he’d be alright. Eventually somehow he’d get out. But for now breakfast. He glared at Chance, why did people always stare at him like that? Why did he always attract the bullies and jerks? How did they know he was a target.  
There was sounds of a ahead commotion when he got the end of the line, his guards muttered into their walkie-talkies and rushed off. He grinned to himself.

Josephine was already getting her waffles and an orange juice. The red plastic tray and beige plate made her feel vaguely disgusted. So did the quality of the food. She didn’t notice the whispering, and sniggering behind her until it was to late. She looked up to see golden hands with a red tray in them above her head, rapidly descending. She dropped her own tray and quickly dodged it as it whooshed by her head.    
“Missed me!” she crowed.

The next time the tray was raised in a upcut that slammed her chin into her teeth. Then whack! whack! Whack! on her head admist a volley of curses.

“You think you’re so tough, just wait till my Daddy finds out what you did!” Josephine said as she was being beaten. “You’ll be sorry.”

“I don’t give a--,” Quin cursed. “Bout your Daddy, brat.”

They were all laughing at her, Josephine was on the ground again, her hand shot out and she grabbed her fallen tray, she raised it above her head and thrust her tray into Quin’s stomach. It caught her Quin off guard knocking the wind out of her. Josephine rose to her feet, sticking out a leg, she tripped Quin. Then raising the tray over her prone attacker, she pounded it into the girl’s abdomen until it shattered. There was shouts all around, laughter, the sound of running feet. But all Josephine could hear was her own blood pulsing in her ears. Quin who had beat her was laying on the floor now, vomiting. Josephine dove in with shard of plastic aiming it at Quin’s face. A guard grabbed her from behind yanking her arms away. Other guards held her As they dragged Josephine away bloody, and battered, Josephine began to cackle loudly. 

 

Dr. Ianthe Rose  
more she was marching down the hallway to Warden Smith’s office. She opened the door to find the Warden talking to three guards standing semi-circle around the Warden’s desk.

“I didn’t ask you come in,” said the Warden, looking at Dr. Rose.

“I need to see you to discuss Josephine Duvaine,” said Dr. Rose.   
 ”Of course,” sighed Warden Smith. “That’s why everyone else is here.

“She shouldn’t be here,” said Dr. Rose. “She has no known abilities-”  
warden cleared his throat.

“--her high intelligence qualifies as a super power,” said The Warden Smith. “Which is why I’m asking the guards to keep an eye on her. The Duvaine family have donated handsomely to this institution, they want to make sure no harm comes to her.”

“No harm comes to her? She sent Quin Quirke to the infirmy today, she’s dangerous.” Said Dr. Rose.

 

the warden rolled his eyes. “I’ll talk about this in a minute.” 

And he dismissed the guards.

“You’re an odd one,” said Warden Smith. “You insist that one child with a record of violent incidents is harmless and scared but a girl without any abilities beyond her IQ is a threat.”

“Have you looked at her record? Her infant brother’s mysterious death, all the near fatal accidents her parents have suffered, and what happened to her nanny?” said Dr. Rose.   
 ”That’s why she’s here,” Said Warden Smith. “She needs to be shown the consequences of her actions. Isn’t the goal of the Duane Dawkin’s center to rehabilitate children like her? Think how grateful the Duvaine family will be.”

Dr. Rose sighed and crossed her arms. “I’ll try to reach her. I will do my best.”

“Good,” said the Warden. “Don’t you have you’re first group session of the day starting soon?”

 ”Yes,” she said coldly. 

“Then I suggest you leave, don’t want to be late do we?” said the Warden.


End file.
